Sadly I own both flawed phones at the same time lol. But happy with them so far. ED10 is hard to like to most with it's color but still with male vocal and classical music it sounds very good to me. And my SR009 has been running non stop on both music and the Kharma burn in disc non stop since day one it arrived, 24X7 since Arnaud couriered to me nearly a month ago now, without any problems (touch wood!). I sure hope it stays that way so I don't have to trouble arnaud. Strange enough, the most sought after headphone on Headfi these days, the LCD2, gets least head time by me.Edited by googleli - 6/13/11 at 9:43am

I'm glad you're enjoying your SR-009, regardless of what others have been saying about it. Unfortunately though, many other SR-009 owners are not, because of the mechanical problems. My own remote plans about returning to electrostatics via the SR-009 have been put to rest as well with the increasing number of defective units, although that's not a big deal since I'm quite happy with my current headphone(s). Ultimately, the important thing is to make up your own mind about what sounds good instead of relying on "preaching" by others.

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnaud

Actually, you are using Edstrelow's wording so to be exact, you should have said "Stax is currently revising the design and solving the problem". It's not quite the same meaning.

As for the respect to current owners, do not worry about me at least, this is not preventing me from enjoying my 009 as we speak ;).

Finally, in re. to Ed 10, well, there is indeed a very very vocal minority, but they're not the ones preaching against it...

Warm does not necessarily imply dark. Sure, warm sounding amps/sources are typically dark, since their warmth is a result of rolled-off highs. Transducers' warmth, however, is not necessarily due to rolloff, and an accentuated midrange combined with piercing peaks at key high frequencies is a not-uncommon combination

I would have siad the opposite, warm sound is bright, i.e. has a lot of upper mid, lower high frequencies..
This comment shows the dangers of using description from one sense modality to describe another. Warmth is specifically energy detected by the skin sensors. Sonic warmth is ........? Evidently we are not calling things the same way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arnaldo

I've owned Staxes in the past, but gave up on them because of continuous mechanical problems, even after sending them multiple times for service repairs. Either way, what goes around comes around...

What Staxes were these? My experience is that I have never had to send even old models in for basic repair other than some forks on a lambda unless they were physically abused. I generally say that once they get past various glitches such as with the current 009, Stax makes some of the most reliable phones and amps out there which will run for decades.

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnaud

Actually, you are using Edstrelow's wording so to be exact, you should have said "Stax is currently revising the design and solving the problem". It's not quite the same meaning.

As for the respect to current owners, do not worry about me at least, this is not preventing me from enjoying my 009 as we speak ;).

Finally, in re. to Ed 10, well, there is indeed a very very vocal minority, but they're not the ones preaching against it...

"Back to the drawing board" is intended as a humorous take on the current problems with the 009. Correct me if I am wrong but isn't the 009 an attempt to redo the transducer design of the original Omegas which finally had to be scrapped? If so it sounds like Stax still hasn't quite solved all the issues.

If Stax has to redesign these, yours should be quite valuable just like those Omega's which are still working well.

It was a Stax SR-Lambda Pro Classic back in the 90s and it was truly a comedy of errors. Strange noises and lower output levels first appeared on one side, the unit was sent for repair, came back OK but then similar problems soon developed on the other side, and so forth. Worse, I had recommended it to a friend who experienced the same issues, but could not send it for repairs because he lived in a country with no service.

Quote:

Originally Posted by edstrelow

What Staxes were these? My experience is that I have never had to send even old models in for basic repair other than some forks on a lambda unless they were physically abused. I generally say that once they get past various glitches such as with the current 009, Stax makes some of the most reliable phones and amps out there which will run for decades.

I would have siad the opposite, warm sound is bright, i.e. has a lot of upper mid, lower high frequencies..
This comment shows the dangers of using description from one sense modality to describe another. Warmth is specifically energy detected by the skin sensors. Sonic warmth is ........? Evidently we are not calling things the same way.

I always considered warmth to have to do with the harmonic content of the distortion a system produces. Low all around as to be inaudible is neutral, dominated by audible even order distortion is warm, and enough odd order or sometimes other types of distortion to be audible is cold.

Something can be warm independent of it being bright (most Grados) or dark (the HD650 by most people's accounts). They K701s are a 'phone I'd label cold and bright. I'm having a hard time thinking of something that's dark and cold. The XB700s come close but I can't remember anything higher end off hand.

I always considered warmth to have to do with the harmonic content of the distortion a system produces. Low all around as to be inaudible is neutral, dominated by audible even order distortion is warm, and enough odd order or sometimes other types of distortion to be audible is cold.

Something can be warm independent of it being bright (most Grados) or dark (the HD650 by most people's accounts). They K701s are a 'phone I'd label cold and bright. I'm having a hard time thinking of something that's dark and cold. The XB700s come close but I can't remember anything higher end off hand.

I have heard this odd(cold) and even (warm) harmonic distortion theory as well. If so, the issue is not really anything to do with frequency response. I wonder if anyone has produced any measurements of distortion to back this up?

I have heard this odd(cold) and even (warm) harmonic distortion theory as well. If so, the issue is not really anything to do with frequency response. I wonder if anyone has produced any measurements of distortion to back this up?

You could look at the graphs on headroom. If you put them all together on the same graph it tries to space them out a bit at the expense of making the x-axis useless but here's the HD650 with some tiny peaks at the 2nd and 3rd harmonics, here's the K701 with large 2nd and 3rd order peaks plus all kind of high order peaks at about the same level as the HD650's 2nd and 3rd, and the DT880/600 is just a mess. Its not a perfect correlation but its somewhat close. From the sound, I'd easily rank the DT880 the coldest followed by the K701 and then the HD650s seem somewhere between warm and neutral depending on what mood I'm in.

All this is just at one frequency though. You'd really need a 3D graph to see the spectral content of the distortion products over a wider range of frequencies but I've never seen anyone make one. Tyll did something similar with his latest burn in experiments though.

Well, like I said my WES is not the best amp out there, but I don't think it's any muddier with O2 than my old maxed GES. I do admit the mid-bass is sometimes a little bloated or prominent with O2 Mk1, and it doesn't have the sheer speed of the BHSE with the O2. It's a better match with the HE-60, and at RMAF 2010 with my PS Audio PWD as source Iron_Dreamer told me that was the best he's heard the HE-60 sound. I personally wish the bass was a little stronger for my HE-60, although it's more than enough with the O2. My WES imparts a rich, warm and full sound, with a nice delicacy, detail and transparency to the treble. If the SR-009 is indeed brighter than the SR-007, then my WES might actually be a good match for it.

Maybe there is something different about my pre-production WES? Steve Guttenberg loved it too, if that means anything. I believe that mine was the demo amp Woo sent him to review for Stereophile. Some of the issue could be tubes - I really want to find my box of winged-C EL34 that I got from Deepak so I can try them out and see how they do. I have NOS Tung Sol 5U4G rectifiers (I need another one for my WA6) and NOS RCA 6SL7 tubes, but I'm not so sure about these Shugang 50 year Treasure 6CA7 tubes that I have read a couple of complaints about.

To me it was a bloated mess and that is indeed the general "mafia" consensus. When you compare it to something like Rudistor crap then it is a fine amp but put in context of something similar and it is a letdown. I for one am hesitant to compare the WES against the BHSE since the latter is just so vastly superior in every way. We are talking about some good 40 years of technological advantage plus better components, layout, operating points etc. etc. A much more honest comparison would be the ESX vs. WES. Same tubes used in both amps (well no phase splitter needed in the ESX so no 12AT7's) but technically they are very different. Massively AC coupled vs. mostly DC coupled (the ESX only AC couples the second and third stage) and much more voltage swing from the ESX plus the ability to run the outputs at 0VDC for maximum voltage swing. Put these side by side and then get back to me.

I do have the full schematic of your amp plus enough pics of another one to know they are close enough to care. As for tube rolling, it will never change the basic character of a circuit. You can put the most expensive 6SN7's in an Egmont and it will still sound like sh1t but the T2 sounds awesome even with crappy Chinese tubes...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arnaldo

It was a Stax SR-Lambda Pro Classic back in the 90s and it was truly a comedy of errors. Strange noises and lower output levels first appeared on one side, the unit was sent for repair, came back OK but then similar problems soon developed on the other side, and so forth. Worse, I had recommended it to a friend who experienced the same issues, but could not send it for repairs because he lived in a country with no service.

I've owned at least 20 of those (both the Pro Classic and the Japanese Spirit version) and all of them have been perfect.

I've owned Staxes in the past, but gave up on them because of continuous mechanical problems, even after sending them multiple times for service repairs. Either way, what goes around comes around...

You must have been incredibly unlucky as I've been using various Stax headphones continuously since the 1960's and have never had a failure or a need for any repair. The energiser has sometimes failed but this has been due to age and and use. IMHO Stax must be among the most reliable headphones ever made.

Unfortunately, and I really mean that, it's not really "a bit pretentious" to state that the problem with the SR-009 is obviously a design flaw. One just has to read through the Stax SR-009 Channel Imbalance Trouble / Driver Problem? thread to ascertain its veracity. But you're right in that my language could have been more carefully chosen in terms of legalese or simply to be more respectful to current owners.

OTOH hand, "isn't a bit pretentious" to state that the Ed 10" are being rejected by the vast majority"? Are there poll numbers to validate this assumption or is it simply based on the opinions of a very vocal group here? Either way, back to the SR-009...

You have no proof of any such design flaw and its reckless and unhelpful of you to make such statements without the facts.

Many new products suffer such faults either in the first few months or after several months use, you only have to look at the number of product recalls for electricals and cars or the issues with Apple iPhones. Its one of the risks of being any early adopter which is why I always quite a while before buying new models

I don't know if I'm reading this right, but statements like "You have no proof of any such design flaw" and "Many new products suffer such faults either in the first few months or after several months use" sound a tiny bit contradictory to me. Regardless, the important thing really is that I hope you're enjoying your own headphones as much as I have been enjoying mine. All else is utterly irrelevant...

Quote:

Originally Posted by complin

You have no proof of any such design flaw and its reckless and unhelpful of you to make such statements without the facts.

Many new products suffer such faults either in the first few months or after several months use, you only have to look at the number of product recalls for electricals and cars or the issues with Apple iPhones. Its one of the risks of being any early adopter which is why I always quite a while before buying new models